17,000 crimes in the past decade have been classified as solved but the criminals have gone unpunished.

Why?

Because the criminals once safely in prison for one crime can then confess to all others and not be prosecuted for most of them.

A police officer will interview an offender in prison, gain a confession to multiple offending and clear multiple offences.

These prison confessions and non prosecutions are classified as Custody Clearances.

80% of them are for burglary, theft and fraud.

The records say Crime solved and the statistics look good.

Offenders know the system and refuse to confess to major volume offending until they are safely in custody. Career criminals are known to confess to numerous additional offences that would not count against them if they are caught re-offending after they leave prison.

The victims are not consulted. They are not compensated and the offenders go unpunished for most of their crimes.

Without a prosecution the victims have an even lower chance of getting compensation. Once again the victim is left to suffer while the criminal gets a clean slate option.

Lets not be harsh on the Police for this. Even if they brought 50 prosecutions and got 50 sentences, the criminal will serve them concurrently. In practice he’ll only stay in for the length of the longest individual sentence, less up to 2/3 parole.

When he becomes eligible to be let out at 1/3 of his sentence the Parole Board is not even allowed to consider full punishment for the crime he has been convicted on, let alone the offences he has admitted but not been convicted for. All they can consider is the future “safety” of the community.

None of this is right.

Criminals should be accountable for their crimes. They should not be able to escape prosecution by so-called Custody Clearances.

ACT will restore truth in sentencing to eliminate this charade:

* Concurrent sentencing will go, and the rules will require some real additional sentence for every conviction
* Parole will be abolished and replaced with a supervision period at the end of every sentence.